EU will continue to block €19.2 billion in funds for Hungary
Remix News | November 20, 2024
In a new report from the EU Observer entitled, “Billions of EU funds to remain frozen as Hungary fails to reform,” top EU officials stated that Hungary will continue to be blocked from the €19.2 billion in EU funds owed to the country.
The outgoing European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, while speaking to the outlet, confirmed that Hungary’s funds will remain frozen. He stated that concerns about Hungary still exist because the draft texts submitted by Budapest do not address what he vaguely refers to as “conflicts of interest.”
“The current state of play of relevant developments in Hungary demonstrate that important concerns still persist,” he said.
The EU Observer report also notes that the Child Protection Act from Hungary is a factor in blocking funds. The act stops LGBT topics from being taught in public schools and blocks gender reassignment surgeries to safeguard children.
The outlet notes that on Tuesday, “a hearing at the Court of Justice in Luxembourg saw 16 member states and the European Commission confront Hungary over its anti-LGBTQ law.”
“This is a frontal and serious attack on the rule of law, and more generally on European society,” a lawyer representing the European Commission told the court, according to AFP.
As European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen outlined in a speech in January of this year, Hungary’s €20 billion would remain frozen until the country opens its borders. It was one of the clearest references to the fact that Hungary’s strict border policy, which is now increasingly mainstream in Europe, is one of the sole reasons behind the frozen money. However, other issues such as LGBT also remain at the top of the agenda for the EU.
Once the government in Poland was changed and the left-liberal Donald Tusk became prime minister, the country’s money was quickly unfrozen. The EU is now wielding EU funds as a powerful tool to attack governments Brussels deems to be political enemies.
Von der Leyen stated once Tusk came to power, that she was “impressed” by his efforts to “restore the rule of law.”
Tusk has taken over public television stations in violation of Polish law, imprisoned political opponents, and completely ignored court orders.
EU announces sanctions on Iran’s shipping lines
Press TV – November 18, 2024
The European Union has announced sanctions on Iran’s shipping lines over claims it has been involved in the supply of weapons to Russia amid the ongoing war in Ukraine.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said on Monday that it had imposed sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), its director Mohammad Reza Khiabani, and several other entities and individuals.
It said vessels, ports, and locks owned, operated, or controlled by those individuals and entities will be targeted by the sanctions, thereby prohibiting any transaction with them.
The EU claimed the individuals and entities have been involved in transporting Iranian-made Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), missiles, and related technologies and components to Russia to use in the war in Ukraine.
The sanctions come more than a month after the bloc imposed sanctions on Iran’s national airline Iran Air over the same claims.
Iran has repeatedly rejected accusations it has been supplying weapons to Russia for use in the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a post on the X on Sunday that sanctions on the IRISL would backfire, adding that they would be against freedom of navigation as a basic principle of the law of the sea.
Araghchi said the EU’s targeting of Iran’s transport systems and travelers showed its behavior toward Iran has no legal, logical, or moral basis.
He said that even the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy himself had confirmed that no Iranian ballistic missiles have been delivered to Russia.
Experts say the EU’s imposition of sanctions on Iran under the pretexts of its involvement in the war in Ukraine is in line with the US government’s policy to pressure Tehran into new concessions amid reports that there could be a new round of negotiations to revive a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.
To secure peace in Ukraine, Trump must review misguided western sanctions
By Ian Proud | Strategic Culture Foundation | November 17, 2024
Following Trump’s election, there has been much speculation about how the war in Ukraine might end. But to understand how it might end, it’s vital to understand how it started.
The origins of the war in Ukraine can be traced back to the ouster of Ukrainian President Yanukovych in February 2014. Russia labelled it a coup, realists would say it was unconstitutional change in power, and U.S. & British officials would shrug their shoulders.
After Russia occupied Crimea and as insurgency broke out in the Donbas, the French and Germans launched a peace process involving the Presidents of Russia and Ukraine. From this so-called ‘Normandy format’ emerged two peace deals named the Minsk agreements. But the UK was sidelined from the peace process and the Americans suspicious of it.
Left out, Britian, supported by the U.S., pushed sanctions as the primary vehicle to contain Russia, running counter to what the French and Germans were trying to achieve. By the summer of 2015, the Minsk agreements had become sidelined, and sanctions were set in stone.
Since that time, Russia has become the most sanctioned country on the planet. Thirty-three western countries, led by the USA, imposed more than twenty thousand sanctions against Russian people and companies. That’s fifteen times more sanctions than Iran in a distant second place.
If we could completely cut Russia’s economic ties with the west, so the theory went, then that would be so damaging that Russia would have to withdraw from Ukraine. Western powers therefore sanctioned everything that they could, from money, ships, oil, gold, diamonds, weapons and all manner of hi-tech components. But from a very early stage, it was clear that sanctions weren’t altering Russian policy to Ukraine, quite the opposite.
When I left the Foreign Office in 2023, the UK government with its western partners, had gone through all the sanctions that they thought might weaken Russia. The west could probably find more people or entities to sanction. But policy makers never really gripped Russian gas, as some European countries still rely on it. And anyway, the destruction of the Nordstream pipeline solved that conundrum. Russian oligarchs that had political connections in the west were spared as were Russian companies that owned factories in the USA, to prevent American job losses. But we hit most things and neared the bottom of the barrel.
Yet, Russia’s economy always seemed to bounce back. That’s partly because, sanctions were never as big a deal as other events that moved the global economy, such as the oil price collapses in 2014 and 2016 and Covid. But it was also because Russia continually adapted its macroeconomic policy to absorb and, in the end, profit from sanctions. Following an immediate post-sanctions contraction of economic growth in 2022, Russia has grown more strongly than the western countries that imposed sanctions.
Western powers therefore needed something stronger, so sanctions evolved into a political tool to isolate Russia on the world stage. The USA, European Union and other countries including Japan and Australia sanctioned every possible type of economic, social and cultural activity involving Russia. Western academics no longer collaborate with Russian academics. Russian airliners can’t pass over western airspace and vice versa. Border posts have been closed or minimised. Russia can’t compete in international sporting events or even the Eurovision song contest.
Russian Ministers are subjected to indignant walkouts by western diplomats and ministers at international gatherings. Ordinary Russian people were denied a weekend ParkRun. Ukraine did its part, cancelling the Russian Orthodox church and going on a propaganda offensive with any western company that sold goods with the word ‘Russia’ in their branding.
And yet, outside of the west, Russia’s standing on the global stage doesn’t seem to be in decline. In a process accelerated by the Ukraine war, Russia, with China, has spearheaded a rapid shift by the developing world to create their own formats for dialogue and cooperation. There are over 200 countries on this planet, so the wealthy ‘west’ is in a minority. The BRICS group has grown rapidly, with a long queue of countries waiting to join, including NATO member Turkey. Vladimir Putin has an International Criminal Court arrest warrant out on him, yet he still travels freely to ‘friendly’ countries, where he receives the red-carpet treatment. He recently hosted a successful BRICS summit in Kazan while war continued to rage in Ukraine.
War started in February 2022 a few days after the Ukrainian government finally signalled the death knell of the Minsk peace agreements. But the point is that the Minsk agreement was [not] necessarily bad; it’s simply that the U.S. and UK invested significant efforts in ensuring its failure.
Sanctions never looked likely to prevent war, nor force its end, despite the death or injury to over one million people and a vast exodus of Ukraine’s population. War in Ukraine became reduced to the brutal, bloody town by town fighting in Europe after D-Day, while life in the west, and in Russia, carried on almost as normal. Fighting alone, Ukraine has never had sufficient resources to survive and never will.
There is a strong case that sanctions created the conditions for war to erupt, by undermining the very peace process – the Normandy Format – that was established to prevent it. And that the west’s continued blind faith in sanctions took us to the brink of a doomsday scenario, more horrific than the use of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Western leaders, not wanting war themselves, focussed blindly on supporting Ukraine for as long as it takes. But the notion of ‘as long as it takes’ became tarnished with increasing numbers of western politicians started complaining that it is taking too long. Not least as the economics and demographics of war still show that Russia can continue fighting for as long as it takes, and that Vladimir Putin has the domestic political support to do that.
So, beyond the hype, if Trump is serious about ending the war in Ukraine, he must look at its origins. A ceasefire alone won’t cut it with Putin. There needs finally to be a peace proposal that includes targeted sanctions reduction. That, and a final reckoning with the NATO membership issue, the brightest red line of all.
Is Israel Using Soccer to Export Its Racist Political Model to Europe?

By Mike Whitney • Unz Review • November 15, 2024
For the second time in 8 days, hundreds of Israeli soccer hooligans attacked unidentified fans at a football match in Paris, France. A number of videos circulating on social media show swarms of young men—mostly dressed in black with masks and stocking caps or draped in Israeli flags—pummeling an unknown Frenchman who was beaten to the ground. The extent of his injuries remains unknown.
The skirmishes took place at Thursday’s UEFA Nations League soccer game between France and Israel at the Stade de France which drew the smallest crowd in history due to the threat of hooligan violence. But although the streets of Paris were heavily patrolled by thousands of police and security guards to protect the visiting Israelis, fans of the home team received no such security. When the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans began raining-down blows on their unnamed victims, the police were nowhere to be found.
Some of the videos show terrified fans fleeing an area in the stands that was overrun by a hostile Maccabi mob sprinting across the upper deck while thousands of fans “Booed” loudly from below. The scene seemed more reminiscent of the political street fights that took place in Weimar Germany in the early 1930s than a football match in 2024. The ensuing mayhem was described by analyst Arnaud Bertrand on his Twitter site:
… There was a football match between Israel and France yesterday and this happened at the beginning of the match: a horde of Israeli supporters openly lynched some French supporters in the stands. Macron himself was in attendance at the match to show his commitment to “fighting antisemitism” after Amsterdam…
He made no public comment that I know of on these French supporters getting lynched in front of his eyes. And the police made no reported arrests. Had the reverse been the case, had this been some Israeli supporters getting lynched by a horde of French supporters, you can absolutely bet 100% that he (and all the French media) would have made a huge deal out of it. You cannot overstate the absurdism of it: because we’ve so gaslighted ourselves around “antisemitism” and so distorted the meaning of it, Western countries would literally rather let our their own citizens get lynched on their own soil – in front of the president’s eyes (!) – than face accusations being “antisemitic” in their own definition of the term. @RnaudBertrand (video)
Bertrand is using the term “lynching” in the legal sense as it relates to the “Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act” in 2022… meaning “that the actions of the Israeli supporters would most certainly be considered lynching under US law because they conspired as a mob to cause serious bodily harm based on bias regarding “the actual or perceived religion or national origin” of the person(s) – matching exactly 18 USC §249(a)(5)’s definition requiring conspiracy & serious injury in hate-motivated attacks. @RnaudBertrand
Arnaud is correct in pointing out that President Macron attended the match. Not surprisingly, Macron was joined in his luxury box by two former presidents, the current prime minister and a large portion of France’s political establishment, all of whom stand foursquare behind the violent Zionist thuggery they witnessed in the stands. (Note—Joshua Zarka, Israeli ambassador to Paris, was also at the game, while Ronen Bar, the head of Israel’s Shin Bet security service, was in France to supervise the security of Israeli players and fans.)

This is from an article at inews.uk:
Fights broke out at a sparsely attended France–Israel match at the Stade de France in Paris on Thursday night, despite a heavy security presence inside and outside the stadium. Footage on social media showed clashes between home and away fans in the stands, with one clip appearing to show men wearing Israel flags punching and kicking a man on the ground before stewards intervened.
Tensions ran high even before the match with a heavy security operation around the stadium, with 4,000 police and 1,600 civilian security personnel deployed as French authorities sought to avoid a repeat of the violent scenes around a Maccabi Tel Aviv match in Amsterdam last week. Police lines extended more than a kilometer from the stadium with barricades along the streets and helicopters buzzing overhead… Just 13,000 tickets had been sold the day before the game – reportedly the lowest attendance for any home fixture in the history of the French national team…
Israel fans sang songs in support of the Israel Defence Force (IDF) and “free the hostages,” in references to captives held by Hamas in Gaza. Some wore masks and IDF shirts.
Despite Israeli government advice, some Israeli dual nationals were in Paris with Betar, an international right-wing Zionist group. Betar’s social media channels posted an image of members in the French capital holding baseball bats before the game. Fights break out at France-Israel match in Paris despite heavy security, inews.co.uk

Let’s recap:
- No expense was spared to provide security for the Maccabi hooligans, but French fans were beaten in the stands without anyone lifting a finger.
- A mere 13,000 people attended a stadium that holds 80,000, but the match was given the go-ahead regardless.
- The Maccabi mob sang military songs and bellowed racist slogans, but no government official has had the courage to order an inquiry. Note: According to the Middle East Eye, Israeli fans chanted “Free the hostages” and “Hamas, Hamas, we’re fucking you”.)
Readers should take a minute and carefully examine the photo at the top of this article. What do you see?
Do you see a gathering of typical soccer fans dressed in team colors and jerseys waving banners and singing team songs, or do you see a uniformly dressed and deeply threatening throng of black-clad troopers with stocking caps and masks who could—just as easily be conducting a military operation as attending a match of their favorite football team?
Who wears a black mask and a stocking cap to a soccer match? Who chants “Hamas, Hamas, we’re fucking you” at a soccer match?
Was this really a spontaneous get together of pumped-up Maccabi fans expressing their support for their team or a clandestine infiltration of the EU overseen by Israeli intelligence agents on secret assignment?
And be sure to take special note of the author’s last observation:
Despite Israeli government advice, some Israeli dual nationals were in Paris with Betar, an international right-wing Zionist group. Betar’s social media channels posted an image of members in the French capital holding baseball bats before the game.
Betar? The far-right youth movement founded by Vladimir Jabotinsky that fought against the British in Mandatory Palestine and was closely affiliated with the Zionist terrorist organization, the Irgun?

Here’s more from an article at the Middle East Eye:
At the demonstration in Paris, Salah Hamouri, a French-Palestinian lawyer who was deported from Jerusalem by Israel in 2022 after spending many years in prison and is now a member of Urgence Palestine, also accused the French president of sending a political message of support for Israel by attending the match.
“This match and the participation of Macron, Hollande and Sarkozy is part of France’s complicity in the ongoing genocide. It is a diplomatic green light given to the Israeli occupier for all its actions in Palestine and Lebanon and for it to continue its massacres in Palestine and in Lebanon,” he told MEE.
“Today, the low turn-out at the stadium shows that the public opinion in France is in favour of the Palestinian cause, and that the people support the people. It shows that the voice of the Palestinian people has been heard, and that a boycott needs to be implemented.” France-Israel match marked by scuffles, booing and a record-low attendance, Middle East Eye
Summary and Analysis
So, now we’ve seen two significant and politically destabilizing events in less than 10 days both of which took place in European capitals. And in both cases, the violence and racist chants were initiated by Israeli hooligans engaged in actions aimed at intimidating the public. Is there a rational explanation for this sudden uptick in social unrest attributable to Maccabi sports fans?
Of course, it could be just a coincidence linked to the behavior of overzealous sports fans who need to practice more self-restraint. That is one possibility. We cannot exclude another possibility, however, that the violence we have seen in Paris and Amsterdam is not a one-off or merely a case of exuberant young men “letting off a little steam.” We must at least consider the possibility that Israeli powerbrokers have launched this operation—using their assets in the IDF and Mossad—to advance their own strategic agenda consistent with their expansionist Zionist plan.
What we’ve seen is that the incitements on the ground have been coordinated with journalists in the legacy media and with political leaders across the West who have fabricated a narrative of growing antisemitism when, in fact, that storyline is easily debunked by the hundreds of first-person eyewitness accounts and the numerous videos on social media that prove that the sole responsibility for the violence in both cities lies entirely with the Israeli soccer thugs.
But why would political leaders and the media want to create the impression that antisemitism is on the rise? That is the question we must ask ourselves, because that is the narrative we are expected to believe.
IMHO, Israeli leaders understand that the claim of antisemitism is a powerful coercive tool that can be used to pressure parliamentarians to modify the law in ways that benefit one group over the others. Thus, as fears of a new wave of antisemitism intensify, the demand for changes to the law increase. Eventually—as in the case of Israel—equal protection is no longer equal protection. One category of people is placed above the law, while the others are crushed beneath the wheel of “second class citizenship.” This erosion of equal protection—that is attributable to the creation of “special” laws for special people—is the fast-track to apartheid, which is the end of a justice system that treats all people equally and with dignity.
Israel is frequently called an apartheid state because one group of people is treated differently (under the law) than the other. If my theory is correct, then Israeli policymakers are trying to affect those same changes in Europe, which means, they are exporting their racist political model to the continent.
Readers may want to skim the article below and decide for themselves whether this theory has any merit:
Calling for a boycott against Israel is forbidden now – and other measures against anti-Semitism, CNE
The German Bundestag took the clearest decision. Last week, the parliament accepted a resolution from both the government and the Christian Democratic opposition to protect Jewish life in the country. The title of the resolution was “Never again is now”, according to reports from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
According to the text, hatred against Jews and Israel is higher than “decades” since the terror attacks on October 7th 2023. The resolution also explicitly mentions that migrants especially add to this problem…. Concrete measures of the resolution are that no state money can go to organizations that… call for a boycott against Israel. Also, schools will be supported in educating about the Holocaust….
Norway
This Monday, the Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre presented an action plan with 22 measures against hatred against Jews. He invited representatives of the Jewish community to a meeting to discuss the matter. “We would love we did not need an action plan”, the Prime Minister said. “But we know that it is necessary.”
The Holocaust Centre in Norway has reported that anti-Semitism is growing after many years of decrease. “It is not just one budget post that resolves this”, Støre said. “This is about something difficult as attitudes.”…
Netherlands
Also , the Dutch government has been invited to take action against anti-Semitism. On Wednesday, there was a lengthy urgency debate in the Lower House about the incidents in Amsterdam last Friday.
The debate was dominated by Geert Wilders –who is leading the largest party– who presented immigration by Muslims as the basic problem of anti-Semitism.
The Dutch society was shocked by the pogrom-style hunt of Israeli football supporters. Hundreds of Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters were asked for their passports, beaten and chased. Opposition leader Frans Timmermans expected concrete measures from the government. He advocated for appointing more detectives to track down anti-Semitic offenders and then imposing harsher penalties….
European Parliament
Also, in the European Parliament in Brussels, parties held an urgency debate about anti-Semitism later on Wednesday. The debate was requested by the Dutch MEP Bert-Jan Ruissen from the Reformed SGP party after the shocking events in Amsterdam. The title of the debate is the “deplorable escalation of violence around the football match in the Netherlands and unacceptable attacks on Israeli football fans.”
“Europe is increasingly in the grip of extremist violence and Jew-hatred”, Ruissen said in a written statement. “This must stop as soon as possible.”
Already in October, the EU ministers of Foreign Affairs adopted a declaration that condemned “all forms of anti-Semitism, racism, hatred and discrimination.” Also, in this statement, action in schools was asked to keep the Holocaust in the “collective memory”. Calling for a boycott against Israel is now forbidden, CNE
Everyone is entitled to equal treatment under the law. There should be no legal carveouts for special people.
EU must reconsider ‘hare-brained’ Russia sanctions – Orban
RT | November 15, 2024
The EU must reconsider the sanctions it has placed on Russia in connection with the Ukraine conflict, and work to end hostilities as soon as possible, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said.
Speaking on Kossuth Radio on Friday, Orban explained that the current economic problems within the bloc stem from Brussels’ “hare-brained” decision to respond to the Ukraine conflict by placing restrictions on Moscow, which have driven up energy prices and overall inflation, hindering the EU’s competitiveness.
The EU declared the elimination of its reliance on Russian energy as a key priority after the Ukraine conflict escalated in February 2022. Sanctions and the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines later that year led to a dramatic drop in Russia’s gas supplies to the bloc, resulting in a spike in energy prices and soaring inflation.
“Sanctions were a wrong, hare-brained answer to the [Ukraine conflict], the EU made a mistake… Energy prices must definitely be brought down. This means that the sanctions must be reconsidered, because the policy of sanctions… it will destroy the European economy,” Orban stated. He called for an “anti-bureaucratic rebellion” within the bloc so that decisions on EU policies will be made with the people’s welfare in mind, both in regard to sanctions and to peace.
Orban also said that European businesses and industries cannot focus on development goals and growth opportunities when there is a war going on, so everything needs to be done to end the Ukraine conflict.
“If we look at this conflict from the point of view of our pockets, our economy, our income, it is a scourge of God on us all… In order to be successful again, we have to end it, end it as soon as possible,” he stressed.
Orban said Hungary would continue its diplomatic efforts toward peace in Ukraine, but said that it needs “a protagonist” who will be “strong enough to not only want peace but also to be able to create it.” He reiterated his hope that the power shift in the US with Donald Trump’s election would help achieve that goal. The Republican has previously claimed that he could end the Ukraine conflict in 24 hours. Until Trump takes office in January, Budapest will work on “achieving change in Brussels” to make sure “EU bureaucrats” do not decide to “continue the war without the Americans,” Orban pledged.
Orban has long been at odds with Brussels over the approach to Ukraine, opposing both aid to Kiev and sanctions on Moscow. Tensions grew further after he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin as part of his Ukraine ‘peace mission’ earlier this year.
Some EU leaders accused Orban of siding with Russia and abusing Hungary’s rotating presidency of the bloc. The premier clarified that he was representing only his own nation, but pledged to continue to work on changing the EU’s overall stance on the conflict.
European lackeys in panic mode as Trump signals detente with Russia
By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | November 12, 2024
It’s early days yet. However, there are signs that President-elect Trump is moving toward a detente with Russia over Ukraine.
One good sign is that Trump will not invite Mike Pompeo or Nikki Haley to join his cabinet when he is inaugurated as the 47th U.S. president on January 20. Both of these figures were rabid anti-Russia hawks during Trump’s previous administration. There were suggestions that Pompeo and Haley might return with senior posts in his second administration. But Trump has announced the pair will not be offered new positions.
Another positive sign is from people close to Trump’s inner circle who are letting the Kiev regime know – rudely – that the U.S. military aid spigot is being turned off.
Donald Trump has yet to hold a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to the Kremlin. But both leaders have already expressed a willingness to negotiate a peaceful settlement over the Ukraine conflict.
Another promising sign of potential detente between the United States and Russia is the sheer panic among European leaders. The news of Trump’s election last week has caused most European elites to scramble like scared children on hearing “boo!”.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron are consoling themselves by urging Europe to “come together” in the wake of Trump’s stunning election victory. The collapse of Germany’s coalition government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz is an early casualty of the Trump impact.
European leaders fear that if Trump pulls the plug on military aid to the Kiev regime they will be left holding the can to fund the proxy war against Russia, which the weak European economies have no chance of sustaining.
It’s no secret that the main European states were betting on Democrat candidate Kamala Harris winning the race to the White House. Harris would have ensured the continuation of NATO’s backing for the Kiev regime. With Trump becoming president, all bets are off.
The political price will be ruinous for European leaders who have invested huge political capital in waging war to “defend Ukraine from Russian aggression.” Trump has shown skepticism toward that false narrative. He has told Europe to go it alone if it wants to. And the European Russophobes know they can’t do that.
If Trump follows through on his election promise to negotiate with Putin on a settlement in Ukraine, then the Europeans are going to be left with serious amounts of egg on their faces.
One thing about Trump that is of concern to the Europeans is his frustration with them as being, in his view, freeloaders on American protection. Another is Trump’s vindictive streak. He’s not going to forget that most of the European leaders wanted him to lose the election.
Take Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer. His Labour Party sent volunteers over to the U.S. to advise Harris on winning the election. The British Foreign Secretary David Lammy has also been reminded that he previously disparaged Trump as a racist “sociopath.”
Trump’s election is bad news for Britain and there is no doubt that Starmer is now trying to repair post-Brexit relations with Europe as a hedge against the expected chill from Washington during the next four years.
When Britain pulled out of the European Union after its 2016 Brexit referendum, there were high hopes that it could negotiate a special trade deal with the U.S. That deal didn’t work out and looks even less likely now. Hence, Starmer has been busy since taking office in Downing Street trying to restore relations with the EU.
This week, the British leader attended the Armistice ceremony in Paris to commemorate the end of the First World War. The last time a British leader honored that event in Paris was in 1944 when Winston Churchill visited the French capital following its liberation from Nazi occupation.
Macon invited Starmer to lay wreaths in the Champs-Elysee and the Arc de Triomphe.
The choreographed caper of European unity is a reflection of the panic gripping European leaders in the aftermath of Trump’s return to the White House.
But everything is up in the air for the European politicians. Starmer was bending over backward to renew relations with Germany as a way to forge a warmer connection between London and the European Union after years of post-Brexit bitterness, only for that to be thrown into doubt.
Last month saw a landmark security deal between Britain and Germany in which German arms maker Rheinmetall would open a new factory in Britain, and the German Luftwaffe would be able to fly warplanes from an RAF base in Scotland. The deal was touted as “a sign of joint European security in the face of Russian threat.”
With the collapse of the government in Berlin over the unbearable financial costs of the Ukraine war to the German economy, the British security treaty may not materialize. That means a big setback to Starmer’s reset plans with Europe.
Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Slovakia’s Robert Fico are in the minority of European politicians who genuinely welcomed Trump’s election as an opportunity to wind down the NATO proxy war in Ukraine against Russia.
On the other hand, the ardent NATO warmongers in Europe, including Britain, Germany, France, Poland and the Baltic states now face a desperate dilemma. Along with EU leaders like Von der Leyen and the Dutch NATO chief Mark Rutte, they have all nailed their colors to the mast for continuing the reckless proxy war against Russia.
Trump seems to be showing good sense in calling off that proxy war and finding a way to negotiate sensibly with Russia on detente. Moscow wants its long-term security demands to be met. That means no NATO membership for Ukraine, an end to the NeoNazi regime in Kiev, and recognition of its historical lands in Crimea and the Donbass.
This is all eminently negotiable, and Trump might just be ready to cut a deal to avoid World War Three, as he has repeatedly indicated he would do. That would mean Trump dumping the false narrative that Biden, Harris and the Democrats – and their European vassals – contrived about “defending Ukraine”.
That would leave the European lackeys in a disastrous lurch. How will they explain to their electorates the three-year slaughter in Ukraine? How will they justify the tens of billions of Euros and Sterling wasted on pushing a war that not only destroyed millions of lives but their economies as well?
The stupid European leaders are in panic mode, and that’s a good thing.
EU Now Has Two Choices: New Arms Race or Mend Fences With Russia – Swedish Military Veteran
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 12.11.2024
The European Commission may redirect some €392 billion ($416 billion) from the 2021-2027 cohesion funds to support their defense industries and military mobility projects, The Financial Times reported on November 11.
The Ukraine conflict and Donald Trump’s return to the White House are likely to impose pressure on the EU to boost defense investments, according to the newspaper.
“After Trump’s victory, European leaders no longer can rely on a secure US backing and only have two choices, either rapprochement and resumption of good neighborly towards Russia or continued belligerence with its following an arms race and risk for escalation,” Mikael Valtersson, former Swedish military officer and ex-chief of staff with the Sweden Democrats, tells Sputnik. “Unfortunately most of the European leaders are supporting the second alternative.”
Many in the bloc would love to become more independent from the US in terms of defense, but it would require gargantuan military budgets which European countries are unable to afford, Valtersson argues.
“Without the US the EU has very limited power projection capabilities and even less nuclear deterrence capability,” he explains. “Building and keeping a strong nuclear capability will be extremely expensive for the limited European defense budgets.”
A possible way out is a shift from the expensive militarization and growing dependence on the US to resuming working relations with Russia, the pundit alleges. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly called for discussing common European security for all.
“A wise European policy in this environment would be to seek better relations with Russia,” Valtersson says. “Better relations with Russia is also a sentiment with growing support among the European population. It’s not improbable that several new governments will be elected in the next years that will share the will of a rapprochement with Russia.”
JD Vance Warns US May Withdraw NATO Support if Europe Tries To Censor Social Media Platforms
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | November 9, 2024
As Americans look at what the incoming administration’s policy will be in relation to tech, JD Vance, the Republican Vice President-Elect, has made a bold suggestion that the United States might reconsider its support for NATO if the European Union attempts to regulate US social media platforms.
This statement was made during the campaign, in an interview with podcaster Shawn Ryan, where Vance relayed an incident involving a top EU official who threatened Elon Musk for allowing former President Donald Trump on the platform.
Vance highlighted the stark contrast between European and American values, particularly on the issue of free speech. “The leader, I forget exactly which official it was within the European Union, but sent Elon this threatening letter that basically said, ‘We’re going to arrest you if you platform Donald Trump,’ who, by the way, is the likely next president of the United States,” he reported.
Vance is likely referring to Thierry Breton, a pro-censorship crusader who was, at the time, European Commissioner for Internal Market. Bretton has since resigned.
In response to Breton, Musk promised a “very public battle in court,” and revealed, “The European Commission offered X an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us. The other platforms accepted that deal. X did not.”
The Vice President-Elect argues that America’s participation in NATO should be contingent on the alliance’s respect for free speech, a core American value. “So what America should be saying is, if NATO wants us to continue supporting them and NATO wants us to continue to be a good participant in this military alliance, why don’t you respect American values and respect free speech?” Vance questioned. He criticized the notion of supporting a military alliance that does not uphold free speech as “insane,” insisting that American support comes with prerequisites, such as respecting free speech, particularly among European allies.
President-Elect Trump, Vance’s running mate, has been critical of some aspects of NATO, having expressed a desire to pull out from the alliance and disregard the Article 5 collective defense clause.
FLUORIDE HARMS HIT THE MAINSTREAM
The HighWire with Del Bigtree | November 7, 2024
Jefferey Jaxen’s reporting last week on the historical EPA ruling on fluoride in drinking water made its way into corporate media with a slurry of misinformation to help sway the election. At the same time, governments worldwide continue to use the term misinformation as a way to control free speech.
Western liberalism has ‘degenerated’ – Putin
RT | November 7, 2024
Liberalism in the West has devolved into an aggressive and intolerant ideology in which freedom, democracy, and human rights take a back seat to power, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.
His remarks were part of a keynote address at the 21st annual meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club in Sochi on Thursday.
“Today’s Western liberalism, in my opinion, has degenerated into extreme intolerance and aggression towards any alternative, towards any sovereign and independent thought, and now justifies neo-Nazism, terrorism, racism and even mass genocide of the civilian population,” Putin said.
Moscow has traditionally considered the “collective West” to consist of the US and its allies in North America, Europe, Australia and East Asia. Their once-liberal governments have transformed their guiding ideology into something “totalitarian in essence,” the Russian president argued.
“Democracy is increasingly being interpreted as minority rule rather than rule of the majority, and traditional democracy is even being put at odds with some abstract freedom, for the sake of which – as some believe – democratic procedures, elections, the opinion of the majority, freedom of speech and impartiality of the media can be disregarded, or even sacrificed,” said Putin.
The Russian president called this trend towards tyranny as one of the biggest threats to the emerging multipolar world order.
The plenary session at which Putin spoke was titled ‘Security for Everyone. Together – Into a New World’. This year’s Valdai meeting is taking place under the motto ‘A Lasting Peace – On What Basis? Universal Security and Equal Opportunities for Development in the 21st Century’.




